Nissuin takes place under the chuppah, the canopy that represents the couple's first shared home, and is marked liturgically by the recitation of the sheva brachot, the seven wedding blessings, which praise God for the creation of joy, love, companionship and peace and invoke them on the couple. Once nissuin is complete the marriage is not merely contracted but fully entered, and the couple may live together, traditionally after a short private interval known as yichud, seclusion, which itself functions as evidence that the marriage has been consummated.
Because kiddushin and nissuin are now performed back to back at a single wedding, many people encounter them as one undifferentiated ceremony rather than as two distinct legal acts, and the ring giving of kiddushin is often the moment a wedding is popularly remembered by, even though it is only the first of the two stages the law actually requires. The merger did not erase the underlying distinction: rabbinic authorities still analyze the two acts separately when questions of Jewish law arise, particularly in the more difficult cases concerning annulment, a status only kiddushin, not nissuin, can in narrow circumstances be undone by declaring never to have taken legal effect.